1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid supply apparatus in which a liquid container is attachable to an attaching section via an opening and a liquid-consuming apparatus which consumes a liquid supplied from the liquid supply apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image recording apparatus, which records an image on a recording sheet of paper by using an ink, has been hitherto known. The image recording apparatus is provided with an ink-jet recording head, and ink droplets are selectively jetted from nozzles of the recording head toward the recording sheet. The ink droplets are landed on the recording sheet, and thus a desired image is recorded on the recording sheet. The image recording apparatus is provided with a liquid container storing ink to be supplied to the recording head. One example of the liquid container is a liquid cartridge, which is attachable/detachable with respect to an attaching section provided in the image recording apparatus. The liquid cartridge storing ink is also referred to as an ink cartridge.
When ink stored in the ink cartridge is exhausted, the ink cartridge is detached from the attaching section of the image recording apparatus, and a new ink cartridge, which stores ink, is attached to the attaching section. A lock mechanism is known, which is provided in order to position and retain the ink cartridge in the attaching section. Such a lock mechanism is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-132098.
The attaching section as described above is provided with an cover, which is configured to open and close, for preventing a user from unexpectedly touching the ink cartridge and/or for preventing a user from releasing the locked ink cartridge. The cover may constitute a part of an outer case of the image recording apparatus forming the appearance of the image recording apparatus. Further, in order to prevent the image recording apparatus from performing the image recording when the cover is open, a sensor, which detects that the cover is closed, may be provided, and the image recording apparatus may be controlled, such that the image recording is not performed unless the cover is closed.
The lock mechanism described above has a lever, and the ink cartridge is selectively locked or released in accordance with the rotation of the lever. However, when the ink cartridge is incompletely attached to the attaching section, the following situation may arise. That is, although the lever seemingly locks the ink cartridge, the lever does not actually lock the ink cartridge completely, and therefore the ink cartridge remains incompletely attached. In particular, if the attitude of the lever does not vary so much between when the ink cartridge is locked by the lever and when the ink cartridge is not locked by the lever, a user tends to misunderstand that the ink cartridge is completely locked, even when the ink cartridge is not completely locked. The incomplete attachment of the ink cartridge as described above causes the occurrence of ink leakage, mixing of air into an ink flow passage from the ink cartridge to the recording head, etc.